Then And Now
by WinterVines
Summary: One night, Nanao accepted one of his embraces, realizing that he was real, he was her rock, and he wasn’t going anywhere. Sentence fic. Shunsui x Nanao. One-shot.


I still don't own anything that's not mine. These are not connected or in any particular order.

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Then And Now

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01 Antique

Nanao remembered the times she used to sit in his lap and read as a child, and sometimes it was hard to believe that was so long ago.

02 Border

He didn't know if she did it on purpose, but Shunsui found an invisible wall stuck between them that only seemed to grow thicker as time wore on.

03 Function

A time came that, when walking with Rangiku, Nanao was stopped in her tracks as she suddenly realized she probably couldn't live without the man that had plagued her thoughts for the past few centuries.

04 Siphon

There were days when Shunsui really believed that Nanao drained all of his sake to empty, especially on those days when he came in to find a stack of paperwork on his desk.

05 Imprison

Nanao used her glasses like a fisher used a tank; they were a cage, designed to keep the turbulent waves of her power within her control just in case, despite the confidence her captain had in her.

06 Donation

"Rangiku, when I said a fundraiser for the Women's Association, I did not mean selling dates with me to my captain, no matter how much he gave!"

07 Rhythm

Shunsui lost himself in the dance as much as Nanao did, as she twisted and turned and molded against him.

08 Threshold

Nanao thought she might have been crossing some invisible line by soothing him, but she wasn't just going to sit there while he was having a nightmare when she could be doing something about it.

09 Flame

Fire danced behind her eyes when he kissed her, and he could've shouted his mirth after waiting so long to see the passion he knew she had always locked away.

10 Jade

"My mother had green eyes," she murmured, watching a boy cling to his mother's hand in the world of the living, so he grabbed her hand in comfort, smiling softly when she let him.

11 Solid

One night, Nanao accepted one of his embraces, realizing that he was real, he was her rock, and he wasn't going anywhere.

12 Aware

Even though they fought back to back and didn't physically see each other, they both knew where each other was constantly, making them one of the deadliest pairs to tangle with.

13 Glow

The first time Nanao achieved Shikai, she radiated, and Shunsui didn't miss the chance to tell her how proud he was of her.

14 Frame

He found the dusty, cracked photo on accident while looking for the hair tie that fell to the floor, but as he looked at the small little boy resembling Nanao, mirroring her age at the time, he realized that Nanao had more ghosts to bury then she led everyone to believe.

15 Cyclone

In battle she was such a whirlwind of light and strength and something ethereal that Shunsui had his breath catch in his throat every time he got to observe her.

16 Augment

It got to the point where Shunsui didn't think he could fall any more in love with her, but then she would show him another rare side of her and he would fall hard once again.

17 Policy

Nanao had not offered to steal the last breath from the Ryoka known as Sado because she was cruel, but rather that she knew her captain hated killing as much as she did and wanted to spare him that pain if she could.

18 Neon

Sometimes she wondered if she had a brightly lit sign hanging above her head because according to her, there was no possible way she should have gained the attention of one Shunsui Kyouraku when she had been so good at blending in.

19 Bitter

He held her hand like she had so many times before for him, watching her fighting to survive a hit she took for him, and he knew that the rules clearly expecting her to do so always was the hardest pill to swallow.

20 Cone

There were times it felt like all of the Soul Society only saw things directly in front of them, and it was those times that Nanao thought the only person she could confide in was her captain, the only one who never judged her on her opinion.

21 Ebony

In the rare event that he got to see her with her hair down, Shunsui marveled on how it seemed like dark, liquid silk, and he longed to run his fingers through it.

22 Dress

He realized she was teasing him, as he eyed the little black dress she wore to the end of the year celebration, and she was doing a damn good job of it too.

23 Scythe

No matter what, in the end, they were just weapons, tools to be used, and Shunsui thought it was a shame that someone as wonderful as Nanao was reduced to no more than a soldier, just like he was.

24 Uno

The only rule to being a Shinigami was to obey all the laws of the Gotei, and there were times when Shunsui wished he and Nanao weren't what they were, if only to be able to spend a day with her without worrying about how many laws they'd be breaking.

25 Dust

A drawn out cough sounded before Shunsui heard, "It was under my impression that the new recruits were supposed to clean the record hall _last_ week."

26 Static

Her mind always buzzed stressfully while trying to organize everything that was going on in the world, and he prided the fact that she told him he could make all of that clear away just by being in the same room as her.

27 Smoke

The fire erupted behind him, and Shunsui turned to see Nanao engulf the hollow in it, suddenly fearful and awed by the glint in her eyes, as if she'd kill anyone that touched him.

28 Lead

She didn't know why he brought her out to this field far out in the Rukongai, but she was content enough to relax there with him, their hands entwined.

29 String

Every time she saw him flirting with someone else, Nanao felt the chord around her heart tighten painfully, reminding her of why she kept her distance.

30 Easel

When she came to the Eighth, Nanao was a blank slate, and she found herself grateful that, instead of forming her into however he wanted, her captain let her take her own paths.

-Fin

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So, after updating SotS, I got this urge to write a sentence fic. It's been a long time since I did one of these, so I figured why not. I got words from my word find book, so if some of them are a little odd, that's probably why. I am making lists now, so expect more sentence fics eventually.

I wrote this fic all because of Policy. A random thought I had. Hope you liked it. Comment if you feel like it. Thanks for reading. It's late, I'm tired, and I'm going to bed.


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